


And this, and so much more

by EmilyNorth



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilyNorth/pseuds/EmilyNorth
Summary: “…swear to God, Maria, it was the best sex of my life.”The voice sounds impossibly close, like someone’s talking right in his ear. A subtle glance around shows him that no one’s standing behind him. It takes a minute of looking around to even figure out who’s talking.Annnnnd there, sitting over on the other side of the café. Mark figures it’s one of those weird acoustic things  where some quirk of the architecture means that if you stand in the right spot, you can hear what someone says from the exact right spot thirty feet away. There’s Not-Maria, talking to Maria over to the side where Not-Maria probably thinks no one can hear them.Mark starts to put back in his headphones, but stops. This sounds like it could be interesting. Best sex of her life, huh?From the tsn-kinkmeme prompt: Mark overhears two women talking about sex in a café. One of them is describing the sex she had last night in a very favourable light and Mark is getting kind of turned on against his better judgement. Until he realises she slept with a man called Eduardo who sounds very much like someone he knew.
Relationships: Eduardo Saverin/Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28





	And this, and so much more

**Author's Note:**

> 2021 A/N: I wrote this a little over ten years ago for the tsn-kinkmeme (original post can be found at https://tsn-kinkmeme.livejournal.com/390.html?thread=646#t646 and the original author note is included below). TSN is a fandom I always find myself coming back to, rereading old favorites (even though, heartbreakingly, a lot of my favorite stories have been taken down—if anyone knows where I can find fledmusic’s old fics, I’d be extraordinarily grateful). I was on a rereading kick recently and thought it was high time I posted this. It’s set in the time period when I wrote it, which was right around Christmastime 2010. I didn’t have a title for it back then—it was literally saved on my computer as TSN-C for “coffeeshop.” But when I was trying to think up something I could use, I thought I recalled a line of poetry about measuring out time with coffeespoons, so I looked it up—and then I read this stanza and thought “Oh—yes. This.” So there you have it.
>
>>   
> And would it have been worth it, after all,  
> Would it have been worth while  
> After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,  
> After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—  
> And this, and so much more?—
>> 
>> —T. S. Elliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  
> 
> 
> 2010 A/N: According to wikipedia, Mark's from Dobbs Ferry, NY. In this story, his family's still there, and he's home for the holidays now-ish. This is my first anonkink, and my first Social Network fic. Please (gently!) let me know what you think! 

Mark mostly loves his family. No, it’s—he _does_ love his family, but in kind of the same way he loves his country, or, you know, God. It’s an abstract sort of love that works best when he doesn’t think about it too much. Because when he _does_ stop to think about it—or spends a week cooped up in a house with it—he doesn’t _stop_ loving his family, he just doesn’t want to be anywhere near them. Especially so _many_ of them, swarming the house with the whole opposite-of-subtle guilt tripping over how long it’s been since everyone’s gotten a chance to see him. Yeah, he hasn’t been home in a while. He’s been a little busy building up a whole global empire and all. Suck it.

Only even Mark’s not going to say “suck it” to his _mom_ , so before his patience runs out completely, he grabs his laptop and hauls ass out into the wilds of Dobbs Ferry, looking for someplace with wifi where he can hole up until he’s ready for human interaction again with people he doesn’t have the right to fire if they piss him off. The wannabe “cozy” café will do, he decides, because like hell is he going to wander the streets any longer. The forecasters say they won’t be getting a white Christmas, but that hasn’t stopped it from getting really damn cold.

The chirpy barista seems happy enough to sell him his cup of coffee that gives him the right to claim a table and plug in, but she looks pretty annoyed when she taps on his shoulder later.

“Can I get you anything else, sir?” she says with a clenched-teeth smile.

“No,” he answers, ready to put his headphones back in.

“It’s just that you’re taking up our biggest table,” she continues, “and it’s lunch rush. And you haven’t ordered anything but our cheapest cup of coffee in three hours you’ve been here.”

“That’s right,” he agrees. He didn’t pick the table because it was the biggest, he picked it because it was next to a power outlet, but if he’s bugging her by laying claim to it while refusing to buy any more overpriced drinks or food he doesn’t actually want then that’s kind of a bonus, isn’t it? It’s always been a rush to be able to piss people off without saying a word, just by _being_.

She storms off in a huff, as expected, and Mark’s about to put his headphones back in when he hears something that freezes him in place.

“…swear to God, Maria, it was the best sex of my life.”

The voice sounds impossibly close, like someone’s talking right in his ear, which would be weird on multiple levels. (If nothing else, why would anyone call him Maria?) A subtle glance around shows him that no one’s standing behind him. In fact, it takes a minute of looking around to even figure out who’s talking. Luckily, she keeps going.

“You _know_ I don’t do that kind of thing—invite some guy I’ve barely met to come home with me—but there was just something about him.”

Annnnnd _there_ she is, sitting over on the other side of the café. Mark figures it’s one of those weird acoustic things from the shape of the ceiling or whatever. He’s heard of it before, where some quirk of the architecture means that if you stand in the right spot, you can hear what someone says in a whisper from the exact right spot thirty feet away. Anyway, there’s Not-Maria, talking to Maria at a little table over to the side where Not-Maria probably thinks no one can hear what they’re discussing. They’re pretty, Mark notices. Especially Not-Maria, with that supermodel frame, all long legs and sleek lines. And apparently kind of slutty, too—in spite of what she claims—since she brought some strange guy home last night.

Mark starts to put back in his headphones, but stops. He’s got no scruples about eavesdropping; the only reason he doesn’t do it more is because he doesn’t much care what most people have to say. But this sounds like it could be interesting. Best sex of her life, huh? What does that even mean, to a woman?

“I could tell right from the start that he knew what he was doing. There was no shyness there—none at all. And once he touched me, to ask me to dance, he didn’t _stop_ touching me. Held my hand while we walked to the dance floor. Pulled me into his arms without hesitating for a second. Kept his hands on me the whole time. That man could _dance_ , but he wasn’t showing off, just using all these moves to keep me close. He hadn’t even asked me my name yet, and he was holding me like he knew every inch of me.”

“Not exactly subtle, groping you like that,” Maria says, to Mark’s amusement, since he’d been thinking the same thing. He’s curious about Not-Maria’s response. Did she actually like getting felt up like that, surrounded by a bunch of people? Mark hates it, himself, when he goes to formal events and gets dragged onto the dance floor by a bunch of women who all but give him a hernia test while he’s trying to waltz. If they want sex, why can’t they just say that instead of going through the awkward and embarrassing seduction routine? Who wants to walk off the dance floor with a hard-on in front of some of the richest men in America?

“No, it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t trying to get a feel in, he was just _touching_ me. A hand on my hip, fingers just under the hem on my sweater not trying to slide up but just rubbing the skin there with the tips of his fingers. And the other hand on my back, keeping me close and always in step with him, never taking his eyes—or his hands—off of me. When he started kissing me, he didn’t go for the mouth, either. He kissed my forehead, cheekbone, chin, down my neck, my collarbones, paying attention to _all_ of me, like nothing mattered but making me feel good.”

It’s almost hypnotic listening to her talk, imagining what it must have been like. People don’t—touch Mark. Not like that. Mostly not at all. There are those women at parties, who molest him on the dance floor and slip room keys into his pockets. He fucks them, or they blow him, and the whole thing is over in about twenty minutes. He never enjoys their hands on him, except for the release they bring. Orgasms feel good, yes, but the pleasure doesn’t last. It’s the same with the girlfriends he’s tried. It’s more comfortable having sex in his own bed instead of in hotel rooms where the sheets smell wrong and the pillows are always too flat, but other than that, the experience is mostly the same. They touch him, and he hides his distaste for the way it feels for long enough to come, then pulls away to clean himself up.

They just…it’s like they always want something from him. Not want _him_ but want to use him, manipulate him. Want to be the one to make him hard, or to make him come. Like his dick is some kind of trophy they want to claim and then maybe stick up on a shelf somewhere to collect dust. Not to use it, not because they like it or enjoy it, but just so they can say they won it.

And that is a seriously weird and creepy thought, and he never wants to picture his dusty dick sitting on a shelf again.

But really, that’s what he hates about the way all those women touch him—the way it always seems to be about them getting what they wanted and ignoring the fact that _he_ might want something other than just getting off. He can’t even remember the last time he was simply _touched_ for no other reason than because it felt good to touch and be touched, to have that contact and connection with someone. Even his family doesn’t seem to like touching him—or each other, or much of anyone else. It’s nothing personal, they just aren’t a very affectionate family. At reunions, they hug because it’s expected, but they never hold on for long. 

And wait, he _can_ remember the last time he was touched like that. Back in school. Coding usually relaxes him, but sometimes when he’s overtired and frustrated by a problem he can’t see the end of, he gets so tense that it makes his head ache, and somehow, back then, right before the point where it became unbearable, there’d always be a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing out the tension just right, and he’d unplug and turn around and there would be Wardo—

But he doesn’t let himself think about that. Ever. He tunes back in to the conversation.

“…talking right into my ear between kisses, making sure I liked what he was doing, telling me how good I felt, how much he wanted me. And the whole time, he kept us moving to the music and never fumbled a step.”

Okay seriously, was she making this up? No guy was that smooth. Sean has dragged him to enough clubs for Mark to know that it’s not just him— _most_ guys can only handle dancing and kissing when done separately. Trying to combine them either leads to the dancing coming to a grinding halt or the kissing getting spectacularly derailed when the distracted guy guides his partner into another couple, or a wall, or a waitress with a tray of drinks. He’s only ever seen one guy pull it off, and that’s because Wardo had weird Latino genetics on his side which meant that he emerged the birth canal doing the tango or something and could still move perfectly on beat no matter what else he was doing, even if he was completely plastered. He danced just as well—maybe even _better_ —when he was drunk than when he was sober, because that whole ridiculously polite thing that made him self-conscious about being a much better dancer than those around him slipped when he was too far gone to realize how bad he was making everyone else look.

And Mark’s going to stop thinking about Eduardo now. He _is_. Right now.

“After two songs of that, I was practically ready to beg him to take me home. So we get to my house and walked in the door, and right away, he’s got his hand up my skirt. I started to get mad, because I thought this guy might actually be _different_ , you know? Not just another one of those assholes who act like the world will end if they don’t get their pants off within thirty seconds of getting through the door. As if dancing with me earns them the right to get off as quickly as possible once we’re within eyeshot of a bed.”

That’s…harsh, but fair, Mark has to admit. He wonders if the women he’s seen (oh, let’s be honest—the women he’s _screwed_ ) have said the same kind of thing about him to their friends after he’s fucked them in their hotel rooms, cleaned up, and walked out the door all in under an hour. Yeah, they probably say things like that. Or worse things—he’d bet they usually find something worse to say. It must make for great gossip to talk about the billionaire who’s bad in bed. People seem to like alliteration like that.

“So _was_ he like that?” Maria asks.

“Oh so very much _no_ ,” Not-Maria replies with a Cheshire-cat grin. “Next thing I know, he’s down on his knees and he’s got my back against the door, one leg over his shoulder and his tongue on my clit. He got me so ready for it that I was on round two before I even stopped screaming from round one.”

“How many rounds were there?” Maria’s starting to sound a little breathless, and Mark knows just how she feels. But while he’s sure most guys in his position would be imagining themselves in the mystery man’s position, having a woman who looks like that screaming for him, what Mark’s picturing is himself up against a door, hips pressed against the wooden frame by strong hands as a man’s hot, hungry mouth takes him apart. And it isn’t just Mark’s _breath_ that’s affected by the thought. He shifts a little in his seat, reaching down to adjust himself discreetly.

It’s happened before—a _man_ tucking a hotel room key in his pocket or just eying him significantly before slipping into the large, handicapped-accessible bathroom stall. And Mark’s accepted those offers, too. Has preferred them, actually, even if he’s never gone past hook-ups. It’s never seemed worth the effort to test the waters on public response to him having a male lover when he has yet to find anyone he actually wants to keep around. Still, the men are less teasing than the women, less coy, more direct—which Mark appreciates. He doesn’t enjoy their touch any more than their female counterparts outside of the end result, but at least they get on with it. And when he’s close to the edge and the pleasure’s overwhelming his mind to the point where he almost wants to pull away from it, regain control over himself, sometimes he downright relishes a man’s solid grip on his body, keeping him firmly in place, not letting him do anything but lean back and take it—dig his fingers into thick hair and _enjoy_ it, just like that first time when…

And that’s the absolute number one thing he never lets himself think about. The thing he’s been not-thinking about for longer than anything else. The very first thing he ever told himself to forget.

“Against the door? Three rounds,” Not-Maria answers. “By that point, my legs couldn’t hold me anymore and I pretty much slid down the wall. He caught me, pulled me onto his lap, and just held me until I stopped shaking. I was _on his lap_ , I could feel how hard he was. He’d been hard since we were dancing—I’d felt that, too—and yet he wasn’t making a single move to do anything but make me feel good. I asked him why he’d done it, and do you know what he said?”

“What did he say?” Maria’s leaning in, full of anticipation.

“He said that I looked like I needed it, and he wanted to be the one to give it to me.”

Mark freezes…except for one part of him that springs from half-hard to full attention in his pants. Because he _knows_ that line. Has heard it before, right at the end of that number one thing that he never allows himself to think about. The first time he’d kissed a guy. His first blow job, ever. And the one and only time he’d had sex with his best friend, Eduardo Saverin.

They’d been very, very drunk—but “drunk” for Mark meant that he got sloppy with things like walking, and thinking before he said whatever thought passed through his head. Alcohol never made Wardo sloppy. (Mark didn’t think that a _tornado_ could make Wardo sloppy.) It made him looser, though—more daring, less polite, and a whole lot less restrained, but still so damn put-together that anyone watching him would think he wasn’t the slightest bit affected. 

They’d been at a party, and Mark had said the wrong thing to the dead wrong girl, to the point where it took some fast talking on Wardo’s part to keep Mark away from getting punched. Punched in the _bad_ way. He was glad he hadn’t gotten hit, but still kind of pissed about the whole experience. He’d gone from talking to a girl and thinking that she might let him feel her up, to getting kicked out of the party with no girl, no prospects, and nothing to show for his excruciatingly boring night but the absence of a broken jaw. And walking was kind of hard.

But Wardo was there, propping him up on one side, steering him back to the dorms. Mark wondered if he was supposed to feel bad, because Wardo had been talking up a girl, too, before he’d gotten dragged into Mark’s mess. If Mark was a good person, he’d tell Wardo to go back to the party, that he could get home alone. But Mark wasn’t a good person—and he was mostly okay with that. If Wardo wanted to help him get home, Mark wasn’t going to stop him. In fact, he was going to lean on Wardo and drag his feet and see how close Wardo could get to actually carrying him without picking him up completely.

Pretty damn close, as it turned out, and Wardo was panting a little by the time they got up the stairs to Mark’s door, both arms wrapped around Mark now with Mark’s body plastered against his as Wardo levered him to the door. 

Mark had started complaining about fifteen minutes back about cocktease girls who don’t take the time to mention that they have a boyfriend until you accidentally make some suggestion that you had no idea would bother them so much that they’d run off to tell their muscle-bound Neanderthal boy toy for no other reason than to watch him kick the crap out of you. He’d segued from there into the poor, pitiable parable of his penis, (okay, fine, he liked alliteration, too,) and how unfairly long it had been since that particular body part had gotten attention or affection from anyone but himself. 

He was still half-heartedly hard. His dick had gotten pretty excited while talking to the girl earlier, and it wasn’t quite willing to accept that it wouldn’t be getting any action tonight. Of course, its optimism was probably also due to the warm, firm body it had been rubbing against for most of the walk home. Because Mark got sloppy with things when he was drunk—and if his upstairs brain could barely handle walking, then it was hardly surprising that his downstairs brain had trouble recalling that it liked girls, not boys, and definitely not his best friend.

The weather was warm, and there weren’t many layers between Mark and Wardo—certainly not enough to hide his erection. He expected Wardo to laugh it off or ignore it. Instead, Wardo got him over to his bed, lay him out on it (on his back, not on his side in the recovery position, as Mark had expected) and then reached for him. Mark had been a little lost in his thoughts, wondering if he had the energy or coordination to jerk off after Wardo left when he became aware of the heat of the palm pressing against his crotch.

“How long’s it been, hmm?” Wardo asked.

“Too damn long. Wardo, what—”

“You wanted to get off tonight, right?”

“R-right.” Mark blushed a little at the stammer, and then blushed harder—aggravated with himself—when he realized he was blushing. What the hell did he have to be embarrassed about? _He_ wasn’t the one groping his best friend’s cock. Okay, so maybe he was the one spreading his legs a little bit and bracing his feet against the mattress to press up into the touch, but he definitely wasn’t the one who had started this. 

And besides, it was hardly his fault that it felt good. It was a hand on his crotch—it was supposed to feel good. And Wardo had brainwashed him over the course of their friendship, getting him used to the feel of warm, gentle hands on his skin—soothing away tension headaches by rubbing at the back of his neck, grabbing hold of his wrist and pulling him away from the computer to remind him to eat or sleep, pressing against his forehead to say “Damn it, Mark, you’re burning up—how did you not know you were sick?” and squeezing his shoulder in that Wardo-way when he came up behind Mark at a party to say that he had his back, that he was there and he’d find a way to cover whatever verbal gaffe Mark had just made. He’d trained Mark, like you’d train a puppy, to associate his touch with caring and comfort and feeling good. And wow, did it feel good now. So damn _good_ that Mark almost missed the next words out of Wardo’s mouth.

“Do you want me to take care of you?”

That was a stupid question. Since when did he ask before taking care of Mark? Taking care of Mark was what he _did_ , right from the start. Then Wardo adjusted his grip on the bulge in Mark’s pants, and some clarity slid through Mark’s sloppy brain. Okay, okay—right. He could see that this was different. This wasn’t like fixing Mark soup when he had the flu, or dragging him from the desk to the bed when he’d fallen asleep in front of the computer. This was a whole different level of “care.” But it…God, it felt good. And yeah, he wanted it. Wanted Wardo’s hands (he loved Wardo’s hands) on any part of him that he could get.

“Yeah,” he gasped out. “Want it.” He could have sworn that Wardo’s hands shook a little as they unbuttoned and unzipped Mark’s jeans, but that wasn’t possible. Wardo’s hands never shook—no matter how drunk he got. Wardo always stayed in control. And there was no tremble in his lips as he leaned forward to kiss Mark, slipping his tongue in smooth and easy, like this was something they’d done a thousand times before, while he opened up Mark’s fly and reached inside.

Mark’s dick was more than happy to leap right into Wardo’s hand. When Wardo pulled back from the kiss, Mark let his eyes slip shut, ready to relax into a hand job—and then they flew wide open when he felt a tongue licking the pre-come away. What—He’d never—That wasn’t—Oh holy GOD that felt good. Mark moaned, gasped, made pretty much every noise he was capable of—though he wasn’t sure if any actual words managed to come out. He kind of hoped they had. And that they’d been nice words.

He could swear he felt lightning bolts go off under his skin and he bucked and thrashed, grateful for the hands tight on his hips, grounding him, holding him in place and keeping him from flying apart. (There were bruises on his hips afterwards. For days, he took a certain dirty pleasure in pressing them hard with his fingers, when he was in the shower or getting dressed, recreating a ghost of the feeling. He was sad when they faded away.) Orgasm finally burst over his skin like a tidal wave, knocking the wind out of him, and when he looked down and saw Wardo _swallowing_ , the aftershocks made him shoot off a little more until he was so empty, he felt raw from it, stripping down to the bone and fully exposed. Still, he managed to gasp out one question.

“Why’d…you do…that?”

Succubus-Wardo had apparently disappeared after swallowing down Mark’s…soul or something, and his hands were comfortingly familiar as they tidied him up and put his cock away. He even worked off Mark’s shoes and maneuvered him under the blanket before answering, bent over Mark as he tucked him in.

“You looked like you needed it. And I wanted to be the one to give it to you.”

He stayed like that, bent over Mark for a second, so close that Mark could feel the warmth of his breath. He seemed to be waiting for something, but Mark didn’t know what. He just knew that it made something twist in his chest, low and sad, when Wardo leaned back, looking disappointed that he hadn’t gotten whatever it was.

“Turn over,” Wardo directed. “You should sleep on your side, in case you get sick.” Mark rolled obediently, curling up on the edge of the bed. “I could stay,” Wardo offered, his thumb rubbing absentmindedly over Mark’s shoulder, like he wasn’t even aware that he’d reached out to touch him.

“M’kay,” Mark had answered, half asleep already. “You c’n crash in Dustin’s bed, f’you want. He prob’ly won’t be back tonight.”

“Oh. Yeah. Dustin’s bed. I’ll…sleep there, then.” The hand left Mark’s shoulder, which felt colder without it, and he could hear the sounds of Wardo moving around the room, turning out the light, and then settling into the bed across the room.

The next thing Mark was aware of, it was five a.m., and his stomach was trying to crawl out of his throat. He stumbled to the bathroom, threw up everything he’d ever eaten in his entire life, splashed some water on his face, and headed back to the room. Wardo was still fast asleep—he could sleep through anything—and Mark just stood there staring at him for a minute. Specifically at his mouth. That mouth, which was the best thing he’d ever felt in his life. The mouth that came with that tongue, and went with those hands, all connected to that body that he kind of wanted to explore like it was a perfect piece of code laid out for him to study, an elegant algorithm that would pull together all the pieces of himself that even he didn’t understand, a groundbreaking program that would change everything. Change the world as he knew it. Change _them_ , Mark and Wardo, coming together on something shatteringly new. 

And that’s what froze him in his tracks. Because was he seriously going to risk changing _everything_ because of…what? A blow job that had happened when both of them were drunk? A blow job that he hadn’t even reciprocated with a reach-around? (Would Wardo be mad about that? If the shoe had been on the other foot, Mark would probably have been mad.) A blow job that…yes, all right, it made Mark want things. Things he hadn’t imagined wanting before. But it was his first blow job, and based on how amazing it felt, he was pretty sure—no, definitely. Definitely sure—that Wardo had done that before. There’d been other guys. Other girls, too, of course, because Wardo rarely left parties alone, and hey, he’d seen Wardo leave with guys before but had just assumed each time that it was a friend Wardo was helping get home safe, because the guys always seemed like they were having trouble standing up on their own with the way they were hanging all over Wardo and…wow. Totally different perspective on all of that now. 

But yeah, that just proved that post-party hook-ups didn’t mean much to Wardo. He never even talked about them—some bullshit about how a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. And he never seemed to stick around to try to turn those hook-ups into something more date-like, because he was always knocking on _Mark’s_ door the day after a party, wanting to interrogate Mark about whether he’d had a good time, whether he’d met anyone. For all the times Wardo hadn’t gone home alone, Mark had never seen him get ready for a date or talk about going after anyone for a relationship. Apparently, the only relationships Wardo wanted in his life were friendships, and when Mark looked at it that way, what had happened between them made a lot of sense. 

Because Mark had been horny. Really fucking horny, and Wardo hated to see Mark upset. He’d probably seen this as just another way to take care of a friend. In fact, Mark remembered Wardo using those exact words, asking Mark if he wanted him to “take care of it.” And that was what Wardo had done. It didn’t mean anything more than that. It was stupid to think otherwise. 

And those urges Mark felt—those stupid, pathetic urges to climb into bed with Wardo and curl up next to him, to kiss him awake (and even through his stupid urges, he knew that was a phenomenally bad idea—he’d just spent the last seven years or so throwing up and nothing short of a brain injury would make anyone want to get anywhere near his mouth right now)—Mark needed to lock those urges up and never let them out. Otherwise, he’d ruin the best friendship he’d ever had, chasing after a fucked-up fairytale that he was pretty sure he’d never get. Relationships didn’t end well for him. And it wasn’t the same for him as it was for other people, who broke up because they “drifted apart” or “wanted different things,” or somebody had to move or something. No, his relationships ended with him being told he’s an asshole—and sometimes stuff getting broken. Like hell did he want to end things that way with Wardo.

So yeah, he needed to…go. Mark needed to go. He couldn’t just stand there looking at Wardo sleeping because that was…that was creepy, and weird, and not something that friends did. And he and Wardo were friends. Best friends. That was enough. More than enough.

By the time Mark’s mind gets back online in the present, Not-Maria’s already talked her and Wardo (because it _is_ Wardo, Mark’s positive) into the bedroom and through the main event. Mark’s actually kind of glad he spaced out for that part. He doesn’t want this random girl to be the one to tell him about Wardo’s dick—not when he never got the chance himself to see it, or touch it, or do any of things that he did not, absolutely did _not_ allow himself to think about. (Dream about sometimes, maybe. But it’s not like he has any control over his dreams. And he forgets them when he wakes up. Mostly.)

But anyway, now she’s gotten them to the morning after, and how sweet Wardo was (though she doesn’t call him that, of course) when he made her breakfast and told her how sorry he was that he wouldn’t be able to spend more time with her, but that the conference at Mercy College where he’d been the keynote speaker was now over, and he had a flight back on Singapore Air tonight.

And that’s just about all that Mark can take. Because he never asked Wardo about that night, about why it had happened that way. Through the rest of their friendship, he never mentioned it to Wardo again—never asked if it had meant anything to him, because he hadn’t wanted to risk ruining what they had. And then when they weren’t friends anymore, he hadn’t asked because he’d been angry and hurt and vengeful, and he hadn’t wanted to talk to Wardo at all. Their friendship _had_ been ruined (and it had been his fault—he’d been an asshole and things had gotten broken and he damn well should have seen that coming), and he’d wanted to keep that memory…clean, somehow. Separate from the friendship he’d trashed. Something he could hold on to once everything else was gone. And he’d been afraid that if he asked Wardo, he’d get an answer that would wreck that for him, too. So he hadn’t asked.

But now he needs to know. Needs it more than he’s needed anything before. (Because he’s always needed Wardo—always needed _that_ from Wardo—and never known how to ask to make him understand.) And now to find that his best friend (yes, still) was right there in his hometown (son of a bitch had probably accepted the conference gig on purpose—had probably thought it was funny, in some twisted, ironic way, to come back to the country just to go to his ex-best friend’s hometown during the holiday season) and that now he’s _leaving_ again…

No. Not this time. Mark has really nothing to lose anymore, and he is finally going to ask the question that have been on the tip of his tongue for over six _years_ now, because despite his very best attempts, he hasn’t forgotten—he’s damn well never forgotten and he’s never going to, and it’s going to itch at his brain and his heart and his…yeah fine, his cock, too (that has never had it so good before or since, and that still sometimes—if sometimes means “all the time”—needs the mental image of Wardo to find release) if he doesn’t get an answer.

With brisk efficiency, he packs up his laptop and then storms over to their table.

“What airport?” he demands.

“I beg your pardon?” Not-Maria says with her nose in the air, like she thinks this is some sort of bad pick-up line.

“The guy you fucked last night—what airport is he flying out of?”

“I _beg_ your pardon?” she repeats.

“You said that already. And stop acting so scandalized. You’re the one talking about getting fucked while sitting in a public café. If you didn’t want people to overhear you, you should have gone somewhere else. Listen, I don’t care what you did.” Lie. He does care. A lot. But she’s not the one he wants to talk to about that. “I just want to know where to find him.”

“Find who?”

Mark grits his teeth. Good God, people are annoying. “Eduardo Saverin.”

Now she’s gaping at him like a fish. “I never said his name!”

“I know. I did. Just now. His name is Eduardo. My name’s Mark. Your name’s Maria,” he turns to Maria, before turning back to Not-Maria, “and I don’t give a damn what your name is. So now we know who everyone is.” He waits for her to answer the question, but she’s still busy gaping—though with more indignation now, like an _angry_ fish.

“JFK or Newark,” Maria says at last, filling the silence. (And there’s a _lot_ of silence, Mark realizes. The other people in the café have stopped talking to stare at them.) “I’m a flight attendant—I know airlines. Judy said Singapore Air, and they only fly out of Newark and JFK.” (Judy, so that’s her name. Like the Punch and Judy dolls. Like how he’d kind of like to punch her right now for fucking Wardo last night and for being absolutely no help in finding Wardo _right now_.)

“Which would you consider more likely?” he asks Maria, who seems to be the only person around who’s remotely interested in being helpful.

“Depends on how time-sensitive his schedule is. There’s a 12:30 out of JFK—if that’s his flight, he’s probably on it already. But if so, he’ll have to lay over in Japan. If he doesn’t mind getting there a few hours later and prefers a direct flight, there’s one departing at 11 p.m. out of Newark.”

“Right.” Mark nods. “Got it. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Zuckerberg,” she answers with a sly smile. He ignores it as he heads for the door, barely even aware of Not-Maria (he likes that name better than Judy) squawking behind him, “That’s Mark _Zuckerberg_?”

He makes it to the train station in no time at all and lucks out when the Metro-North train to Grand Central pulls up just a minute later. As it takes him in to the city, he calls ahead to reserve a car to drive him to the airport, and then buys his ticket with his smart phone. There’s a better-than-decent chance that when he asks his question, he won’t like Wardo’s answer—and there’s an even better chance that Wardo will refuse to answer him at all—but he knows he’s not getting past security to see Wardo without a ticket. Some things, even money can’t buy, and carte blanche to wander through airports is one of them. Thankfully, money _can_ buy a ridiculously expensive first-class ticket to a place he has absolutely no interest in seeing. (Mark also maybe uses the time to hack Singapore Air just a little, to make sure Wardo really is going to be on the 11 o’clock flight—he is—and then tweak the seat assignments.)

He makes good time getting to the airport, and once he arrives and gets past security, he decides to tackle the logistics head-on. Calling his mom to explain that he won’t be back soon for dinner—and won’t, in fact, be back any time soon if everything works out the way it should—goes…not well, exactly, but it does go, eventually. He explains what he’s doing. She explains that it’s a terrible idea. He ignores that and wraps up the conversation quickly, because it’s just occurred to him that it might be difficult to fly out of JFK to a different country when his passport is back in California. He calls his assistant and tells her to work something out. She’s dead silent for ten seconds—which is a new record; he’s kind of proud of himself—and then says she’ll get back to him.

With nothing really left to do for now, he figures he might as well get some work done. He finds a seat next to an outlet, pulls out his laptop, and dives in.

The next thing he’s aware of is someone saying his name. He looks up, and there’s Wardo, worlds more put together than Mark, as always, in a suit and tie, (and who the hell but Wardo would wear a suit and tie to an 11 p.m. flight that he’s going to be on for the next nineteen hours?) but looking at Mark like he’s some kind of ghost. And wow, is it really time for Wardo to be here yet? Just how long has Mark been sitting there working?

“What time is it?” he asks, standing up and stretching.

“Eight-thirty,” Wardo answers. “Mark, what are you _doing_ here?” And Mark’s actually planning to answer that question, but really, 8:30? Damn, he hadn’t realized he’d been sitting there for so long. He’s kind of hungry now and tries to remember when he last had something to eat.

“Huh, I never had lunch,” he says instead. “Do you know where I can get a sandwich around here?”

Wardo looks displeased. “It’s past _dinner time_ , and you haven’t had lunch? Why am I not surprised?” But he takes a bag of almonds out of his pocket. “Here. Start with these.”

“Thanks.” Mark breaks open the bag and pops a few in his mouth, trying to figure out the best way to steer the conversation. It actually seems to be going pretty well at the moment, and he’s sort of reluctant to ruin it.

“Are you…flying coach?” Wardo asks, looking around the airport waiting area.

“First class. I’m sitting next to you, actually, if you’re wondering how your seat assignment magically changed in between the time you bought the ticket and when you checked in.”

“It _what_?” Wardo yanks out his boarding pass and scans it with a growing frown. Mark didn’t change much—Wardo’s still in first class, still has a window seat. He’s just in a different row—a row that had a seat open next to him for Mark.

“How did you… _why_ would you…You know what, first things first. Let’s get over to the first-class lounge.”

“Oh, right. The lounge. That’s why you asked—”

“If you were flying coach. Yes. But I should have known you’d just—”

“Find an outlet and forget about the lounge? Pretty much.”

Mark had forgotten how easy it is to talk to Wardo. It feels good, natural—and scary as hell, because the conversation they’re about to have is either going to bring it all back, better than ever, or ruin it beyond any possible redemption.

So yeah, that sounds like fun, right?

There’s time for a little stalling once they get to the lounge because Wardo insists on Mark ordering dinner. And Wardo’s not the kind of guy to go asking questions with possibly uncomfortable answers when there’s wait staff hanging around, so Mark has time while they’re seated at a table, and their drink orders are taken, and Mark decides what he wants for dinner, before he has to think of anything to say. But by the time the waiter has walked away with his dinner order, he’s still drawing a blank.

Wardo fills the silence. “Why are you going to Singapore, Mark?”

“I’m not. That is, I _am_ , if I actually get on the plane, but I didn’t buy the ticket to go to Singapore. I bought the ticket because I knew you’d be here, and they wouldn’t let me through security to talk to you without a boarding pass.

The answer isn’t quite satisfactory, Mark can tell by the frown on Wardo’s face, but at least he hasn’t gotten up and walked away yet.

“How’d you know I was going to be on this flight?”

“I was in this café and…you know what, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you the whole thing on the flight. If I’m on the flight.”

“Okay, then. Why did you want to see me?”

And here it was. The moment of truth. The test as to whether he’d chicken (heh, chicken) out again, or finally go after what he wanted.

“There was that night. That party, sophomore year. I got kicked out for accidentally insulting some guy’s girlfriend, and you helped me get home, remember?”

“That happened a lot of times,” Wardo hedges, but Mark can tell he knows which night. He wouldn’t be avoiding Mark’s eyes otherwise.

“This night you got me into bed, and then you…And you asked me if I wanted—”

“I remember.” Wardo cuts him off, his voice sounding about half an octave deeper than it did a minute ago. “I didn’t think _you_ remembered—you never mentioned it again.”

And Mark has a good explanation for that, but now’s not the time. Right now, he needs his answer.

“When you were…done,” Mark continues, “I asked you why. Why you’d—”

“Yeah.”

“And you. You said…”

“I said that you looked like you needed it.”

“And that you—”

“And that I wanted to be the one to give it to you.” He’s still looking at anything and anyone other than Mark.

“Why’d you say that, Wardo?”

“Because it was true,” he answered softly.

“But _why_ did you want to? Because we were friends? Because you wanted to help me out? Because you felt sorry for me?”

“It was years ago, Mark. Why are you rehashing this now? It didn’t matter to you then. I woke up, and you were gone. You never talked about it. And just a few weeks later, you met Erica.”

“Yeah. But when I woke up that morning…” He’s just going to have to spit it out. If Wardo punches him for it, then so be it. He’s probably got it coming. Definitely. He definitely has it coming. “I woke up that morning, and saw you, and I wanted to crawl into bed with you. I wanted to kiss you until you woke up. I wanted you to teach me how to suck your cock as well as you sucked mine.”

And if nothing else, Mark’s _timing_ sucks like a pro, because that’s when his food arrives. The waiter politely pretends he didn’t hear anything and walks away. Wardo’s blushing fire-engine red, but damned if Mark’s going to stop now that he’s gotten started. They’re already embarrassed—no sense stopping now and continuing the conversation later so they can be embarrassed _twice_. 

“I wanted you, Wardo. As more than a friend. A lot more. And I need to know—what did you want? Why’d you really do that for me?” _And everything else_ , he continues silently in his head. _Why’d you do everything else for me? All the time you spent taking care of me, standing by me, giving me anything and everything you thought I might want or need. Why’d you give me Facebook, right from the start, when anyone else would have told me it was a crackpot idea, and a waste of money?_ “Was it just friendship, or was it…more?”

There is a long moment of silence.

Mark dives back in. “You can tell me it’s none of my business. You can tell me to go to hell. You can tell me that I screwed up too badly, and that no matter what you felt for me back then, you’re never going to be anything but angry with me from now on—you’re never going to forgive me. You can tell me to leave right now, and I will. I’ll hand you my boarding pass, and I’ll walk away. Or…”

“Or?” Wardo replies, so quietly Mark can barely hear him.

Mark feels his heart jump up into his throat. His stomach’s twisting in knots, and he kind of thinks he might throw up (but on the bright side, he hasn’t eaten anything yet, so there probably isn’t much that he _can_ throw up). He feels so happy his hands are shaking. Because that “or” sounds good. It sounds like there’s a chance, however this ends today, that he might someday get his friend back.

“Or you can tell me you did it because you cared about me. Because you _still_ care about me. As a friend, or as more. Either way, if you cared about me then and still care about me at all right now, I’ll get on that plane. I’ll fly nineteen godawful hours to Singapore right next to you, and when we land, you can decide what happens next.”

Wardo sighs. He doesn’t look happy, which is kind of strange to Mark who is now so ridiculously happy that his smile is probably bordering on manic. (Somewhere further over in the lounge, a baby starts crying. Because of Mark’s scary smile? Maybe. He angles a little away from the direction of the cries, just in case.)

“What is it you want, Mark?” Wardo asks at last.

Well, that’s an easy question. “You. Pretty much any way I can have you.”

Wardo snorts. “You’re straight. I think that takes some _ways_ off the table.”

“Two minutes ago, I told you I wanted to learn how to suck your cock. If you didn’t hear me, I could bring the waiter back—I’m positive he caught it.”

“It was years ago when you wanted that. You were nineteen and horny, and,” here Wardo finally makes eye contact, “I give excellent head. I know you enjoyed it. If you woke up the next morning and found yourself thinking about it, that doesn’t make you gay.”

“I’m no longer nineteen, and it’s been years since I’ve had firsthand experience with your—yes, unquestionably excellent—cock-sucking techniques. I still want to. I think that makes me a little gay. Or bi. I’m comfortable with calling myself bi. I still think girls are hot. I just want you more.”

“Jesus, Mark.” Wardo runs a hand through his hair. Mark wants to do it for him. He still remembers how it felt under his hands, the sense memory as real and visceral as if it happened yesterday.

“I told you what I want. What do _you_ want?”

Wardo slumps back in his seat, defeated. “Pretty much the same thing I’ve wanted since I met you.”

“Which is?”

He quirks a half grin. “You.”

Mark’s heart jumps so hard in his throat that he can barely swallow. It’s…it’s the answer he wanted. It’s the answer he really fucking wanted—but didn’t think he could get. He’d have been happy—ecstatic—with friendship and the chance to try to work Wardo around to more. But for Wardo to admit that he wants Mark, _still_ wants him, in spite of everything… This is beyond what he could have ever realistically expected.

“So then—and now—you wanted…”

“On that night, I was so damn tanked. I didn’t even realize I was taking advantage—” 

“You weren’t,” Mark interrupts. “We were both drunk. And we both wanted it. There was no advantage taken.”

“—I just saw the chance to have what I’d been wanting for what felt like forever,” Wardo continues as if Mark hadn’t spoken. “I wanted to do _everything_ to you, but I settled for making you feel good. When I was done, I wanted to get into bed with you, wrap myself around you, wake up next to you and see if I could make it good for you when we were both sober. But you sent me to Dustin’s bed, and when I woke up, you were gone. I thought it must not have mattered to you—that you’d probably already forgotten it, in which case I’d better play along. Not make it into a big thing. And never mention it again.”

“I was stupid,” Mark explains. “I didn’t want to screw things up. I figured either you weren’t really interested in me and had just taken pity on me—in which case, it was better not to bring it up—or you _were_ interested, in which case I had to decide whether or not it was worth the risk to go for more than friendship. I’m no good at romantic relationships—we both know that. Friends, I could handle. We were good as friends. I didn’t want to ruin that. Not for something I’d only just realized I wanted.”

“Did our friendship really matter that much to you? That wasn’t the impression I got.”

Mark flinches but pulls himself together quickly. Here it is. The hurdle he knew they’d have to face. It’s not like their past ends with the blow job all those years ago. Facebook has got to come into it eventually. It’s something they need to lay to rest before they can move on. And if he gets this right, then they _can_ move on. He’s sure of that now. But first, he has to get it really, truly, _perfectly_ right. Wardo wants him, and that’s amazingly awesome—but Wardo wanted him back then, too, and he still walked away. He could walk away again.

“Yes. Your friendship really mattered to me.”

“But Facebook mattered more?”

“I didn’t realize there was a competition.” 

Wardo’s face closes off and Mark’s reaching out before he even realizes it, grabbing hold of Wardo’s hand across the table. “I swear, I’m not being sarcastic. That’s really the way that I saw it. Facebook had my attention, yes. But I didn’t think of it as something that would get in the way of our friendship—not when we were in New York or when I first got to California and everything was starting to come together. Facebook was _our_ project, and we were in it together. I wanted to do things my way, and I was aggravated with you for not giving in. But it never occurred to me that our friendship was on the line—I thought we were just arguing. We’d argued before. It wasn’t that you didn’t matter, it was just that your friendship wasn’t something I’d realized I could lose. Not over Facebook. Not over something that was supposed to be ours. It wasn’t until you froze the account that I realized that you’d put everything on the line—including us. I…didn’t react well.”

“You stabbed me in the back.”

Wardo deserves eye contact on this, so Mark gives it to him. “Yeah. I did.”

To his surprise, Wardo leans forward. “Why’d you do it, Mark? Why did you write me off like that? It wasn’t about picking Facebook over me—I almost could have understood that. But no, it was about picking Sean and Peter and a bunch of people who didn’t give a damn about you over me.”

“They told me that it was what Facebook needed—”

“And you knew that was bullshit,” Wardo interrupts. “You’re no business major, but even you know thirty isn’t more than half of a hundred. I always held a minority share. If you didn’t agree with what I wanted for Facebook, you didn’t have to trick me out of my shares—you just had to overrule me. You always had the clout to do that. You always had the final say. But you didn’t _say_ anything—you just sat there and let me get screwed over. It wasn’t for Facebook, so what was it for?”

“It was for me,” Mark answers, not allowing himself to flinch this time, not even a little. He was an asshole, he accepts that he was an asshole, and he’s not going to attempt to deny or justify his assholery. There’s no taking back what he did. There’s only hoping that they can move on from it, that Wardo will decide to accept him, flaws and all. 

“I did it for me, because I was pissed at you, and you were pissed at me, and I wanted to come out on top. I honestly thought you wanted out. Facebook didn’t mean the same things to us anymore. For me, it was about bringing to life that fantastic idea that I had, the idea that got you and everyone else on board. It was my chance to prove to the world what I could do. And I wanted you to be a part of it, because you were the one who believed in me back when no one else did. But for you, it seemed like it had become all about impressing your dad and hooking girls like Christy. You didn’t care what I wanted for the site anymore. Your internship, your girlfriend—it was as if everything else in your life came first.”

Mark realizes he’s still holding Wardo’s hand, almost petting it, and that it may be a little awkward given what he’s saying. He lets go. 

“And then you froze the account, and I was so mad at you. Sean saw his opening and showed me those papers, told me his plan. And I said yes. If you wanted out, I was damn well going to let you out. On my terms.”

“It was a shitty thing to do.”

“Yes.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Which part?”

Wardo laughs in spite of himself. “Diluting the shares, Mark. Do you regret diluting the shares?”

“Yes, I regret diluting the shares. It was a vindictive move that didn’t accomplish anything other than hurting you. Which was my goal at the time, but which I’m sorry about now. I still think I did the right thing ignoring your advice—and let’s face it, in the long-term view, you weren’t the right CFO for the company. But you’re right that I could have outvoted you, if it had come to that. I could have run the company the way that I wanted and still let you keep what you deserved. You’d have been furious with me for never following your recommendations, and we probably would have fought long and hard—and maybe ruined our friendship anyway—but it would have been more honest. More fair. And maybe we could have worked things out, if I’d actually tried.”

Wardo takes a (very, very long) minute to think about that. While waiting, Mark ends up eating some of his meal, just to have something to do with his hands. He doesn’t really taste it. 

“Okay,” Wardo finally says. “I can live with that.”

Mark’s heart jumps and his stomach twists and he wonders if eating was really such a good idea after all. It would be bad if he threw up over these clothes—it’s not like he has anything to change into. But Wardo’s finally smiling at him from across the table, and in spite of the butterflies running rampant through…pretty much all of his body, he can’t really bring himself to care about anything else.

“So where does that leave us?” he finally gets around to asking.

Wardo checks his watch. “Well, in about an hour, it leaves us boarding a flight to Singapore.”

“We’ve got an hour,” Mark repeats helpfully. “What are we going to do to fill it?”

And wow, that really wasn’t what he’d intended—he was mostly just asking if Wardo has work he needs to get done or something—but yeah, he’s really not going to complain about the way Wardo’s eyes darken and his smile turns wicked.

“An hour’s not that long,” he comments, “but there isn’t something you said you wanted to learn?” He glances over deliberately at the men’s room door. And _that_ brings back memories. Bitter memories of getting a very subpar blow job by Alice when all he wanted was to kick Christy out and step into that stall with Wardo. Yes, that’s a memory he’s more than happy to replace with a better one.

It’s probably too soon for this. If he really wants to start their relationship on solid emotional ground, he should insist that they work things out some more, talk everything through, get their friendship back on an even keel before diving into physical intimacy.

But it’s not like he’s going to say _no_ to anything Wardo wants to do when he’s looking at him like that. Mark’s been at least partially hard ever since the café, and he’s been thinking about Wardo the whole time. He needs some relief. And he needs to stake his claim, in turn. Listening to an idiot woman rambling on about fucking the guy you’ve been semi-consciously in lo…okay, it’s definitely way too soon for that word, but anyway, hearing some skank raving about the sexual prowess of the guy you’ve been beating off to the memory of for over half a decade would be enough to make any guy want to leave some unmistakable, neon-spotlit hickies right where anyone in a ten foot radius can tell he’s utterly and entirely taken.

“You’re the college graduate,” he reminds Wardo. “I’m just the dropout. I think you’re going to have to show me how it’s done.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Wardo says, standing up smoothly and dropping some cash on the table to cover the meal. And whoops, Mark probably should have gotten that, since it was his food. But it’s fine—he’ll just buy something really great for Wardo once they get to Singapore. Like the Raffles Hotel, maybe.

Wardo’s pretty rich, too. Together, maybe they could just buy the whole country. That’d be nice. Probably not as nice as what Wardo’s about to do, as he back Mark into a stall and drops down to his knees, but…nice, all the same.

Mark closes his eyes and slides his fingers into Wardo’s hair as Wardo gets his pants open. It already feels amazing and Wardo’s barely touched him yet. It’s the anticipation that makes it so good. The knowledge that this isn’t the first time—and it won’t be the last. There’s even better yet to come.

And they’ll do it together.

THE END


End file.
